Nakamura Utaemon III in six roles, Asayama Ashikuni; Nakamura Utaemon III

Archive Label 2003: The celebrated Nakamura Utaemon III from Osaka was known as a poet and dramatist as well as a kabuki actor. Under his pen name of Shikan, he collaborated with the artist Asayama Ashikuni to produce the drawings for a set of twelve seasonal woodcuts that illustrate kabuki performances in which he starred. The last six of these are pasted on this screen. They show the actor in the “quick-change” dancing roles for which he was most famous. The scene for July at the extreme right shows the actor performing both partners of an elderly couple, using a painted fan to represent the woman. Archive Label date unknown: The Kabuki actor Utaemon III and the artist Ashikuni collaborated to produce two horizontal prints which depicted twelve dancing roles (one for each month) from the play Really, Again? Twelve Changes. This print, which is designed as a six-panel screen, shows, from right to left, the seventh through twelfth months. The roles are: seventh month, an old pot mender, eighth month, a courtier; ninth month, a blind street musician; tenth month, a dancing beggar; eleventh month, a heron maiden, and twelfth month, a Chinese hero. The seventh and ninth months are by Utaemon.